Metaphysical Essays


Book Description

John Hawthorne is widely regarded as one of the finest philosophers working today. He is perhaps best known for his contributions to metaphysics, and this volume collects his most notable papers in this field. Hawthorne offers original treatments of fundamental topics in philosophy, including identity, ontology, vagueness, and causation. Six of the essays appear here for the first time, and there is a valuable introduction to guide the reader through the selection.




Absolute Generality


Book Description

Is it possible to quantify over absolutely all there is? Or must all of our quantifiers range over a less-than-all-inclusive domain? It has commonly been thought that the question of absolute generality is intimately connected with the set-theoretic antinomies. But the topic of absolute generality has enjoyed a surge of interest in recent years. It has become increasingly apparent that its ramifications extend well beyond the foundations of set theory. Connections include semanticindeterminacy, logical consequence, higher-order languages, and metaphysics.Rayo and Uzquiano present for the first time a collection of essays on absolute generality. These newly commissioned articles -- written by an impressive array of international scholars -- draw the reader into the forefront of contemporary research on the subject. The volume represents a variety of approaches to the problem, with some of the contributions arguing for the possibility of all-inclusive quantification and some of them arguing against it. An introduction by the editors draws ahelpful map of the philosophical terrain.




Moral Appraisability


Book Description

This book explores a central question of moral philosophy, addressing whether we are morally responsible for certain kinds of actions, intentional omissions, and the consequences deriving therefrom. Addressing a range of little-discussed topics and forging crucial connections between moral theory and moral responsibility, Moral Appraisability is vital reading for students and scholars of moral philosophy, metaphysics, and the philosophy of law.




Supererogation


Book Description

David Heyd's study will stimulate philosophers to recognise the importance of the rather neglected topic of the distinctiveness of supererogation and the difficulty of accounting for it, and to take a fresh critical look at their theories in the light of its singular importance.




Lexical Competence


Book Description

Proposes a dual picture of human lexical competence in which inferential and referential abilities are separate. Topics discussed in the text include classical issues in the philosophy of language and philosophy of mind such as semantic holism, dual-factor theories, publicness, and verificationism.




Ernst Cassirer


Book Description

This is the first English-language intellectual biography of the German-Jewish philosopher Ernst Cassirer (1874-1945), a leading figure on the Weimar intellectual scene and one of the last and finest representatives of the liberal-idealist tradition. Edward Skidelsky traces the development of Cassirer's thought in its historical and intellectual setting. He presents Cassirer, the author of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, as a defender of the liberal ideal of culture in an increasingly fragmented world, and as someone who grappled with the opposing forces of scientific positivism and romantic vitalism. Cassirer's work can be seen, Skidelsky argues, as offering a potential resolution to the ongoing conflict between the "two cultures" of science and the humanities--and between the analytic and continental traditions in philosophy. The first comprehensive study of Cassirer in English in two decades, this book will be of great interest to analytic and continental philosophers, intellectual historians, political and cultural theorists, and historians of twentieth-century Germany.




Ordinary Objects


Book Description

'Ordinary Objects' shows how to develop a common-sense ontology and defend it against a variety of eliminativist arguments. The text argues that the apparently diverse eliminativist arguments rest on a few shared assumptions, and that questioning these gives us reason to reevaluate the proper methods and limits of metaphysics.




Art and Intention


Book Description

Do the artist's intentions have anything to do with the making and appreciation of works of art? In Art and Intention Paisley Livingston develops a broad and balanced perspective on perennial disputes between intentionalists and anti-intentionalists in philosophical aesthetics and critical theory. He surveys and assesses a wide range of rival assumptions about the nature of intentions and the status of intentionalist psychology. With detailed reference to examples from diverse media, art forms, and traditions, he demonstrates that insights into the multiple functions of intentions have important implications for our understanding of artistic creation and authorship, the ontology of art, conceptions of texts, works, and versions, basic issues pertaining to the nature of fiction and fictional truth, and the theory of art interpretation and appreciation. Livingston argues that neither the inspirationist nor rationalistic conceptions can capture the blending of deliberate and intentional, spontaneous and unintentional processes in the creation of art. Texts, works, and artistic structures and performances cannot be adequately individuated in the absence of a recognition of the relevant makers ́ intentions. The distinction between complete and incomplete works receives an action-theoretic analysis that makes possible an elucidation of several different senses of 'fragment' in critical discourse. Livingston develops an account of authorship, contending that the recognition of intentions is in fact crucial to our understanding of diverse forms of collective art-making. An artist's short-term intentions and long-term plans and policies interact in complex ways in the emergence of an artistic oeuvre, and our uptake of such attitudes makes an important difference to our appreciation of the relations between items belonging to a single life-work. The intentionalism Livingston advocates is, however, a partial one, and accomodates a number of important anti-intentionalist contentions. Intentions are fallible, and works of art, like other artefacts, can be put to a bewildering diversity of uses. Yet some important aspects of art's meaning and value are linked to the artist ́s aims and activities.




An Ontology of Art


Book Description